Oh, hell, copy protection

[kimmygibler]

I use no cd patches for pretty much every game I have. You'd be crazy not to in my opinion. Especially if you have several different games at one time on the comp. I think game developers must realize this , and it's one of the good reasons for patching a game early and often. Several games have made it so that each patch nullifies the effectiveness of any no cd patch. You have to wait a few days for a new no cd patch. In the mean time, since I buy games legally, I can play the new version with the cd. While illegal users would have to wait and then reconfigure their comp with the new patch and the new no cd patch. So this should be good reason for companies to want to release constant patches. In theory anyways...

[Blake]

I have a policy of installing a nocd crack the first time I try to load the game and the CD isn't in the drive... since it's usually quicker to dl and apply a crack than find the CD (yeah I'm a tad disorganized with my CD's and such...)

[Darkstar]

Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by ml_4da3

Thats ok, I hate anti-pirates and their stupid anti-piracy propaganda wich always plays on stealing or leeching..

Pirating software is about free-loading. About using/enjoying someone else's hard work without paying them for it. It's the same thing as sneaking in the movies through a fire exit or getting a friend to sneak you into a concert.

99% of software pirates would never actually pay for the software they steal. Same as music pirates, movie pirates, etc etc etc. That's just how it is. There can be no dressing it up under some pseudo-crapology.

You want to live somewhere where there is no copy-protection, no copyrights? Move to Iran. There is no copy-protection allowed in Iran. But then, their is no actual private IP (intellectual property) of any form allowed. Its the only country in the world like that. I don't hear many artists saying "We should all learn from Iran!". I don't hear the most wacko cypher-punk preaching "We should all move to Iran!". I wonder why not? In Iran, all information can be free as possible.

[Antic]

Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by Darkstar


Pirating software is about free-loading. About using/enjoying someone else's hard work without paying them for it. It's the same thing as sneaking in the movies through a fire exit or getting a friend to sneak you into a concert.

99% of software pirates would never actually pay for the software they steal. Same as music pirates, movie pirates, etc etc etc. That's just how it is. There can be no dressing it up under some pseudo-crapology.

You want to live somewhere where there is no copy-protection, no copyrights? Move to Iran. There is no copy-protection allowed in Iran. But then, their is no actual private IP (intellectual property) of any form allowed. Its the only country in the world like that. I don't hear many artists saying "We should all learn from Iran!". I don't hear the most wacko cypher-punk preaching "We should all move to Iran!". I wonder why not? In Iran, all information can be free as possible.

Actualy, Brazil is unhappy with the USAs heavy handed way on the international scene, and how the USA only honors free trade agreements when it serves their own purposes and disregard them when it comes to their own internal industry. So Brazil is, acording to WTO laws of retaliations, Retaliating to the broken promises of the USA by disolving all coopyright in Brazil on everything from american movies, games and programs to Medecines and other forms of patents. So in Brazil its legal to be a pirate right now. As the country switched to linux last year microsoft cant threthen them to move jobs abroad if they dont drop this new law cus microsoft never cared about Brazil anyway. Same with many other US companies.

Same with China. They arent happy with the USAs politics either and are, less officialy, acting in the same way.

So whilst many respect intelectual property. Thats not the norm all over the world right now. And piracy will never go away. Not as long as companies cling to an old business model with many middlehands that use delayed release tactics around the world for profit maximation. Civ 4 is an example where its released later in europe than the USA. The world is a globalised economy, AND a globalised information society. People in parts of the world who cant take part in the release same time as the USA people will be tempted to pirate the game instead to have the same opurtunity to play it as not everyone can afford over seas shipping fees thats mroe costly than the product itself like i did for civ4.

When the industry realises that the internet is global and instant. And that artists, musicians, gaming companies etc can sell their products directly to customers over the net, without expensive middle hands and publishing companies, then the prices can go down significantly, ALL musicians can get a chance to sell their music, not just the pop junk the record companies put their lables on right now, and with that comes a greater selection for us the customer. By selling over a download you reach the entire world instantly at the same time and if people like boxed versions that can be a limited offer at a price closer to today. All this is possible today with portal sites and search functions all thats missing is the will.

Because the truth is that record companies and publishing companies are obsolete. But they do not want to let go and use any means nessesary to cling to their jobs. Wich includes preventing any modernisation of the business model.

So just screaming that "piracy is stealing!" Isnt a mantra thats entirely true. Piracy is still here because record companies and publishing companies have failed to adapt along with the technological advancement and the globalisation of trade.

And its us, the consumer that gets to pay for all this.

[Darkstar]

Dream on.

Piracy is here because the common human is a coward and a thief. It's your genetic heritage as a predator. All predators are cowards and thieves. All your successful predatory ancestors were successful because they were cowards and thieves, and you are the exact same thing, when you aren't under the watchful eyes of your peers.

Why is that important? Because these companies want your dollar, not a Brazillians! You've got the money to spare. That's why they are making it difficult for you to pirate there products. That's why they want to protect their music, their movies, and all the other forms of entertainment that you spend your money on.

Civ4 was available in Malaysia within hours of its US release for less then $3. You think Take Two or Firaxis is losing sleep over that? No. As long as you in the US or EU cannot order your own copy from those Malaysian street vendors.

Look, for entertainment markets like software, if people stop spending money on it (because everyone is pirating it or playing freeware), then what will happen is that Firaxis will go out of business, as will EA, Sega, Sierra, etc etc etc. If people aren't willing to blow some disposable cash on it, the market will go away, and we won't be able to find something with the high production cost/value of Civ4. That won't mean there won't be any new games, ever. Just no major cost projects. Freeware would remain. Low cost entertainment software (ie, shareware) may continue. I'm old enough to remember when games only took $1000 develop and market. They were still just as fun as the $10 million games that we are seeing these days (LOTR franchise for instance). They just had a lot less sounds and graphics.

You can make a case that the major publishers are asking too much for their products. I'd agree with that. But its the publisher, not the developers, that usually set that price point. The publisher is in the business of publishing a game. Publishers go for the maximum grab of cash they can get away with. Since they are out to screw you as hard as they can, it's only natural for you to want to screw them back. But if you are going to do that, just be aware that you are screwing more then just that publisher. You are screwing the whole entertainment market... including the devs that make what you are interested. If those people cannot get enough money, they'll go out of business...

It's a trade off.

Of course, you can always be a principled protestor. And only deal in freeware, shareware, shoe-string ware, and independant published games. Lots of good value to be find in those market shares. Those items are often not copy-protected. But "pirates" don't care. They'll steal those just as much. And those independant and shoe-string operations, those guys really need that cash to feed their children.

[ml_4da3]

Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by Jubala

Tell that to the guy that just got fined 16k SEK (2k USD) for sharing one movie.

Yeah I know about that. What I am talking about is the opinion of the general population. In aftonbladet, swedens biggest netmagasine, 86% of more than 80000 voters said that *ILLEGAL* download of movies/music was ok. The general population like piracy and support the pirates. Its only because of stupid media companies and EU we have stronger copyright laws now, not because the population WANTS it.

[ml_4da3]

Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by polarnomad


How exactly do you define CivIV as information?

It is not matter, but information. It is a pattern; patterns are information.

[ml_4da3]

Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by Darkstar


Pirating software is about free-loading. About using/enjoying someone else's hard work without paying them for it. It's the same thing as sneaking in the movies through a fire exit or getting a friend to sneak you into a concert.

No. I pirate software AND I buy software I like. I will buy Civ IV later when it is avaliable, because I like the game.

I go to cinema and pay for DVDs, etc - while at the same time downloads hundreds of gigabytes of movies etc each month.

A pirated copy does not mean a lost sale. Compare it to radio, people does not buy less music because they can record it from radio ; people buy MORE music because their intrest in it increases. The same goes with piracy; I am MORE intrested in music, movies etc NOW than I was before. I am even a "Gold member" on my local cinema because I spend a lot of money there You cannot make the stupid asumption that piracy means less income. At the moment I am spending as much money I can on culture; if I was unable to pirate this amount would go down - not UP; I would put less money on culture, not more.

Also I do not believe in forced and constructed monopolies (=copyright). I would rather se some kind of "credit law"; Where the law guarantees that noone can take credit for someone elses work (like putting your own name on a movie), but free copying of all works should be allowed and even encouraged.

For the media companies my piracy is good. But for me, it can sometimes be bad, since I put down more time than I have on watching stuff

In the end I want to support artists that do works I enjoy, such as Firaxis for Civ IV or JMS för B5. Piracy is about beeing able to sample and enjoy culture and then support the artists that deserve it. I do not want to support artists that do works I do not enjoy, even if they try to fool me into buying their crap through commercials. Piracy promotes good artists and demotes bad constructed artists that only rely on commercials and advertising.

As a matter of fact, I recently found out that JMS will not get *ANY* money from the sale of B5 DVDs, even though they have sold verry well. So tell me, how is the system of today rewarding the artists? Isnt the system today more about rewarding the investors and capitalists. Do we really need those to produce culture; or is there another way to finance the artists (example through buying from them directly via internet) and maybe a system of cooperative where profits from big artists go to finance independent artists and returns profits to artists/customers..?

I would gladly donate 50 USD to firaxis instead of buying Civ IV; then firaxis would get more money from me than if I bought the game for 50 USD. The problem is that this is not possible So I will have to buy the box.

[ml_4da3]

Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by kcmurphy88


Yeah, and I'm all in favor of free sharing of your bank aco****. The people who write these games are not your slaves -- why do you expect their work for free?

The problem is that if you take money from my bank account; you do exactly that; take money from my bank account => I lose money. Same thing with a CD in a store; if you take the CD the store loses the CD and does not have it anymore.

However if i *COPY* your data, you still have it. And if you *copy* my data I still have it.

Copying of information is good. If not for anything else, then atleast for ensuring its survival thorugh time.

To hinder copying of information is, IMO a crime against humanity and our future.

The library of alexandria was founded on forced copying of works by others to collect all information in the world. Compare the modern pirates to what they did; we pirates are creating some sort of "Library of the world" globally where all information is stored redundantly on millions of harddrives and the information is constantly beeing copied all over the world. Its a great thing!

[Antic]

Originally posted by Darkstar
Dream on.

The concept of freedom started with a dream of something greater for all of us. So do not look down on dreams. Its the part of humanity that lost all their dreams and just cling to bitter illusions and the pragmatic ideas that others feed them that really need the pitty.

What i said above is not what i want to see. Its whats happening right now. So its not a dream, its reality.

Piracy is here because the common human is a coward and a thief. It's your genetic heritage as a predator. All predators are cowards and thieves. All your successful predatory ancestors were successful because they were cowards and thieves, and you are the exact same thing, when you aren't under the watchful eyes of your peers.

Maybe i should start to inform you that its bad argumentation tactics to aim your speech in a way that would attack and acuse me as a person. As you clearly seem to exclude your own person from this argument as you say yours not ours. Its just a sign that you lack proper arguments yourself.

And do you have the facts to back up that claim? I doubt it. What you are saying is that we should have less freedom in the world because if the population is not being watched and under constant survelliance by their "peers" they will missbehave. With this you both say there are different classes of humans. Some more worthy than others (the peers over the masses). And that we should get rid of all civil liberties because people arent mature enough for them.

But who watches the watchers?

I take it you are an american from your account info. Have you even read your own constitution? Are you this eagre to throw away all that your ancestors fought for?

Why is that important? Because these companies want your dollar, not a Brazillians! You've got the money to spare. That's why they are making it difficult for you to pirate there products. That's why they want to protect their music, their movies, and all the other forms of entertainment that you spend your money on.

You seem to completely miss the point. Corporations always want our money. Thats the reason they exist, to maximize profits for their owner. But that has nothing to do with Brazil. They have corporations of their own in that country if you didnt know.

What Brazils new law will do is that it will create a safe haven for all kinds of pirates. Software and hardware pirates. Make cheap drugs on the side of patents and ship all over the world, and put pirate fileservers there where users can download and upload games and programs without any risk of getting caught because brazil are unlikely to hand over the logs of those servers to the MPAA and RIAA in the USA. That means people from all over the world can now be pirates without risk aslong as their ISPs respect their privacy and in a majority of countrie sin the world theres lawys that forces them to do that.

Its not difficult to pirate products. Im a civil engineer with a degree in computer science and a degree electronics. I work for a software firm in sweden. So i have the educational background to know what i talk about. Its not hard to pirate. Infact its impossible to stop. Because as long as you can see the movie or listen to the music you can copy it. Only way to stop it is to outlaw computers entirely. And thats never going to happen. You can not stop piracy with force or any form of DRM. That only encourages more piracy. You can only do it with new business models, overhauled intelectual property laws, new pricing models, more legal alternatives etc. Simply to make it simple, quick and worth their money for people to get the legal copy. No matter where they live in the world at the exact same time with the click of a button.

There have been plenty of sucessful trials of systems like these all over the world, a couple here in sweden. But big corporations fear them because that means they have to change the way they do business and accept less profit. Greed for personal gain gets to take priority over real will to get a working system here.

Civ4 was available in Malaysia within hours of its US release for less then $3. You think Take Two or Firaxis is losing sleep over that? No. As long as you in the US or EU cannot order your own copy from those Malaysian street vendors.

Ah but nothing stops us ordering them more expensively from the USA before the EU release? So its ok as long as it hurts more for the consumer economicaly? Thats not how you build consumer trust. Thats how you alienate your consumers.

Infact the very same time civ4 was avilable for 3 bucks in malaysia it was available for free over the internet. And for people outside the USA without good income jobs like the ones I and probably you have, for those people that will be their only chance to get their hands on the game, weather they want to pay or not. And here your own ignorance for how the world works today shines through again. You see theres two models of thinking out there right now. The horizontal distribution business model and the Vertical distribution business model.

The old one, wich the companies, and you, want to preserve, is the one where the consumers passively sit and wait for their turn to consume and do consume whatever is thrown at them by the people in the top of the horizontal system without question because they dont know better. This system worked fine untill 20 to 30 years ago. But then we got the globalised trade system, we got the globalised information system (internet is part of that) and with that we got consumers that keep in track with the technological and sociological changes in the world. Changes the corporations failed to follow through in.

Consumers are today set up for a vertical distribution system where the entire world is a market at teh same time and the consumer him/herself chooses what he/she wants to consume and at what time. Consumers think for themselves and do not let others think for them anymore by telling htem what kind of music they should like or buy now etc. Corporations try to force people into the old patterns where consumers take what they are offered with no questions asked at the time and convenience of the corporations but that dosnt work. As a bi product you get the problem of file sharing. Consumers always get their way in todays system. Even if they have to go past the corporations stuck in their old ways. Piracy in the 80ies and early 90ies where an isolated phenomena. Today its wide spread. Corporations themselves caused this by not adapting to the new vertical system.

Theres a lot behind this but i doubt you are going to listen to me anyway so ill leave it there. Atelast you know now that the problem isnt black and white. And that HOW you earn a dollar today is more important than just sitting back and expecting it to pay up like it did the past 40 or 50 years.

Look, for entertainment markets like software, if people stop spending money on it (because everyone is pirating it or playing freeware), then what will happen is that Firaxis will go out of business, as will EA, Sega, Sierra, etc etc etc. If people aren't willing to blow some disposable cash on it, the market will go away, and we won't be able to find something with the high production cost/value of Civ4. That won't mean there won't be any new games, ever. Just no major cost projects. Freeware would remain. Low cost entertainment software (ie, shareware) may continue. I'm old enough to remember when games only took $1000 develop and market. They were still just as fun as the $10 million games that we are seeing these days (LOTR franchise for instance). They just had a lot less sounds and graphics.

Wrong. Income for developers come from the initial investments. Thats what pays their workers salary. The investor takes a risk but gets most of the cash from sales later. Little of that goes to the developer. Middle hands take the biggest part. All depends on the way their contract works. The new system will actualy put the majority of the income in the pocket of the developers/artists and investors and skipping all middle hands.

And wrong again. The publishers and record companies will go out of business. As they should because they failed to adapt and are thus obsolete. Firaxis can still take on investors build their product and sell it online directly to customers through portals. Due to the business System resisting the need to adapt to the new realities of today, we may see some investors hesistant to invest at start wich may make some weaker developers having a hard time to find funding for projects. But after a short transition period this will fade away as investors will see that the verticaly adapted business model is actualy working, and working better than the old one. This will result in some companies going under yes. But thats inevitable and talented gaming developers can and will reform into new entities under the new system. A system where the developer gets a bigger share of the cake.

Yet again you take for granted that all people HAVE disposable cash. With todays prices not everyone does. Especialy not the biggest target group. Teens and young adults who are students etc. Consuming culture has become part of todays lifestyle. Poll uppon poll has shown that people are perpared to pay if there was any legal alternatives and if prices were more resonable.

Also weather or not older games are worse than newer ones is debatable. Many older games have superior storyline and gameplay to todays games and lasted much longer because today developers have to put down so much money and resources into graphics (with every new generation of graphics technology the costs rise exponentialy) that the rest of the games tend to suffer. The president of Electronic Arts has said himself on the Developer conference this year that todays games that sell the most tend to be mediocre games that instead of putting most of its funding into the game development, used it into marketing to hype it. And thats what governs EAs gaming development. He also said that with the next gen consols and graphics generation we are transisting into now that will become more evident in comming titles due to the cost increase.
I dont know about you, but i dont like Mediocre games if thats the price we get to pay for a couple of more shiny special effects in the graphics department. a game for 1000$ can be much better than one for 10mill$.

Same goes for movies. The greed spiral has gone too far there too. an example is a finnish team of students who with only 10.000 euro made their own sci fi movie with real special effects and released it for free on the net. And you can download it for free here www.starwreck.com . If you have the courage to look at it you will see that extreme cost isnt nessesary to produce today.

You can make a case that the major publishers are asking too much for their products. I'd agree with that. But its the publisher, not the developers, that usually set that price point. The publisher is in the business of publishing a game. Publishers go for the maximum grab of cash they can get away with. Since they are out to screw you as hard as they can, it's only natural for you to want to screw them back. But if you are going to do that, just be aware that you are screwing more then just that publisher. You are screwing the whole entertainment market... including the devs that make what you are interested. If those people cannot get enough money, they'll go out of business...

You are right here. The publishers are a problem. And thats exactly why they are obsolete. There is tools today for developers to release their products themselves. And use network marketing. So we dont need publishers and the auto inflation of the prices that their presence means.
But you are wrong that you screw the whole entertainment market by removing the publisher from the production chain. You will ensure that more money actualy ends up in the hands of the developer. This could have been reality today if the publishers etc had adapted long ago. But they havent. So they have made themselves obsolete.

And WE the consumers pay the price in form of higher prices and less selection as many publishers also calls the shots on whats to be produced.

It's a trade off.

No.

Of course, you can always be a principled protestor. And only deal in freeware, shareware, shoe-string ware, and independant published games. Lots of good value to be find in those market shares. Those items are often not copy-protected. But "pirates" don't care. They'll steal those just as much. And those independant and shoe-string operations, those guys really need that cash to feed their children.

You are wrong again. Sure there is a minority that dosnt care. But they have been around since the 80ies. Most of the filesharing pirates of today are pirates because they DO care. They are consumers who due to lack of legal alternatives, prices or consumer choise, makes their choise of consumption anyway. If the corporations can not deliver what consumers want but non corporation entities can, the choise is easy.

Todays consumers can not be forced to consume a certain item at a certain date. In todays globalised world a consumer isnt a citizen of the USA, sweden or Brazil, They are a citizen of the world. And the entire world is their arena for consumption. So the entire world must be seen as the arena for equal and non prejudiced distribution.

Piracy is solved with the carrot not the whip.

[polarnomad]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by ml_4da3
It is not matter, but information. It is a pattern; patterns are information.

Which means what?

In my free time I have been known to take pictures. I invest my time and money into finding good subject matter and create quality shots. I then pass a small selection of these pictures to a photo bank, which then sells them for money. By your reasoning it would be ok to go ahead and copy those pictures and do as you please with them. Well, guess what... If I knew that was going on then two things would happen.

1- I would very upset and feel robbed.
2- I would stop taking those pictures, or at least not make them available to the public.

People need money to create the things you enjoy for free.

[James]

Is it so hard to run the disc in its own disc player?

[Antic]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by polarnomad


Which means what?

In my free time I have been known to take pictures. I invest my time and money into finding good subject matter and create quality shots. I then pass a small selection of these pictures to a photo bank, which then sells them for money. By your reasoning it would be ok to go ahead and copy those pictures and do as you please with them. Well, guess what... If I knew that was going on then two things would happen.

1- I would very upset and feel robbed.
2- I would stop taking those pictures, or at least not make them available to the public.

People need money to create the things you enjoy for free.

Not nessecarily. You put that picture in the picture bank under the asumption that you would gain financialy from it.

However if the system already was in place that photos arent copyrighted for 70 years etc. Then you would be basing the decission to put the pictures in the bank uppon that reality and thus not be upset if they were copied because you could not expect financial gain past a certain point.

Also you would perhaps do photos as a recreative hobby instead of seeing it as a way of financial gain. Cus belive me theres lots of photographers out there who dont take photos cus of the money they could make, but do it because they like taking photos. So the photographers would not vanish if the intelectual property laws were overhauled. Also the really good pictures would still make money.

I could link you to a dozen photo pages right now by people using professional photo equipment to share the beauty of their world with others.

Everything is relative.

[ml_4da3]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by polarnomad


1- I would very upset and feel robbed.
2- I would stop taking those pictures, or at least not make them available to the public.

IMO a true artists care more about getting his/hers works out to as many as possible - not about getting rich. Survival is always possible in other ways. People can pay you money if they like your works, visit art galleries, pay for teaching your skills, etc.

I pay money to those artists which I like. I do not pay those I dislike. Do good works and you will get money - even if people pirate your works freely. For example, you could have free images on your webpage and then have a donate function.

In the end the possibility of humans to freely exchange information is more valuable than some few artists refusal to produce if their work is pirated. Culture (music, photos, whatever) will still be produced even if it is not by you.

Dont forget that piracy would also make it easier for many more types of culture which is based on current culture; for example sampling in music, etc. It would also be easier for new artists to release their works without worries that they might infringe unknowingly on someone elses work.

A big problem among anti-pirates is that they view pirates as people who are egotistical and will never pay any money to them. But this image is wrong, pirates are normal humans to and wants to do good by paing for stuff even if it IS avaliable for free...

[mgdpublic]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh, hell, copy protection

Originally posted by ml_4da3


The problem is that if you take money from my bank account; you do exactly that; take money from my bank account => I lose money. Same thing with a CD in a store; if you take the CD the store loses the CD and does not have it anymore.

However if i *COPY* your data, you still have it. And if you *copy* my data I still have it.

Copying of information is good. If not for anything else, then atleast for ensuring its survival thorugh time.

To hinder copying of information is, IMO a crime against humanity and our future.

The library of alexandria was founded on forced copying of works by others to collect all information in the world. Compare the modern pirates to what they did; we pirates are creating some sort of "Library of the world" globally where all information is stored redundantly on millions of harddrives and the information is constantly beeing copied all over the world. Its a great thing!

Worst. Argument. Ever. You are either felony stupid or in
felony denial. The only reason you have this game to play , a computer to play it on, and an internet on which to expound your not even half-assed theories are because of
copyright, trademark, patents, etc..